Tag: Wales rugby league

By STEVE MASCORDIN rugby league we like to do things at the last minute. It’s how we roll. But this has got to take the cake.
Jamaica are to tour the UK, playing Ireland at Bray and Wales at Wakefield. When? IN TWO WEEKS!
That’s right, an historic international tour has been announced three weeks before it commences. The games are on October 16 and October 21.
It will be the first international at Belle Vue since 1909.
.In other international action recently, the Czech Republic beat Norway 12-6 in Krupka.
The Czechs scored unconverted tries to Petr Šedina, Petr Fanda and Jan Howard with centre Henning Jørgensen posting the visitors’ touchdown.
Meanwhile, Serbia warmed up for the coming World Cup qualifiers by beating Spain 64-4 in Valencia.
There is also an Under 21s series between Lebanon and Serbia underway, with the Cedars winning game two 22-6.
.WELSH language TV station S4C is to show live the Dragons’ World Cup qualifier against Serbia on October 15 from Parc Stebonheath in Llanelli.
It’s the first time the national side has featured in a live broadcast on the station since the heady days of the 1995 World Cup, when their semi-final against England was played before a well-populated Old Trafford with thousands

By STEVE MASCORDEUROPEAN Countries are getting ready for the final stage of World Cup qualifiers, with the matches played in the coming weeks.
Pool A includes Wales, Italy and Serbia while Pool B comprises Ireland, Spain and Russia. The top two in each group automatically qualifies for Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, with second in each playing off for the final berth.
The tournament kicks off on October 15 at Moscow’s Fili Stadium, when the host country takes on Spain.
Of the six teams involved, Spain and Russia would be regarded as the outsiders.
.THE United States Rugby League is again making a push towards the Wesr Coast.
Jacksonville Axemen founder and Floridian league pioneer Daryl ‘Spinner’ Howland recently reached out to interested parties about getting a competition up and running.
He received quite a response.
It’s to be hoped those involved in California previously, such as Zane Hirtzell, Col Manners and Ben Everill can be involved.
We’ll keep you posted.
.SINCE our last column, we had the great announcement that the Women’s World Cup would be run concurrently with the men’s tournament next year.
And while Sydney controversially missed out on most of the men’s tournament, Wooloware’s Southern Cross Stadium will host the pool matches and finals.
The final itself will be played at Suncorp Stadium on December 2, the same day as the men’s final.
It’s a feather in the cap of RLWC CEO Andrew Hill that he was able to mend bridges between the tournament organising committee and the NSW government by attracting funding.
One can only assume the bridges were burned by former boss CEO, given that the government offered the men’s tournament no funding at all.
The US is playing Canada on October 1 at Wilmington, Delaware, and F&W will be there!
.THE RLEF is continuing to rebuild rugby league in Greece. It recently conducted match official training there, accrediting the country’s first female referee, Zoe Valassa.
@RLWfarandwide

By STEVE MASCORDJACKSONVILLE Axemen have been the outstanding team of American rugby league for the last decade but they were toppled in the USARL grand final a couple of weekends back.
Northern Conference champions Philadelphia Fight took out the big one 42-20 at Boston University after eliminating the local club the previous week.
The Fight finished the season undefeated.
The US has announced a clash with Canada at Wilmington, Delaware on October 1.
.FORMER Penrith and Celtic Crusaders star Jarrod Sammut has been named in Malta’s squad for the upcoming internationals against Ireland and Thailand.
The Ireland game is in Bray on October 8, the Thailand match in Chiang Mai on October 28. The Knights will have different coaches for each match.

NORDIC Cup winners Norway are about to put their pride on the line with an away international against the Czech Republic.
The match will take place at RLC Dragons Krupka Stadium on September 24 (4pm kick-off if you’re thinking of going.
The sides last met three years ago, with Norway winning 26-14 in Oslo.
.JAMAICA and Canada have met in the first youth international for each team. The Canadians won the Under 17s game 24-4 in Kingston.
.SOUTH Wales Scorpions have been rebranded South Wales Ironmen and the club’s new CEO is a former rugby union international, Lee Byrne who wants to pilot the team into Super League.
A number of Scorpions/Ironmen players have been named in the Welsh side which is about to embark on a tour of Germany.
@RLWfarandwide

By STEVE MASCORDWALES have announced a ground-breaking tour of Germany in October.
They’ll play a warm-up in England at the end of September before taking on a British Army combination in their first match on German soil.
The international against the Germans will be played on October 22 with the venue yet to be announced.
The Dragons side will be chosen purely from residents. Tyson Frizell need not pack his bags.
The Germans are coming off a narrow win in the Griffin Cup; they beat the Netherlands just 8-6 in Rotterdam.
The final hour was scoreless with spectators describing the clash as intense.
.THERE’S an interesting annual match in Serbia – the national side takes on the national under 23s.
If all players under 23 played for the juniors, how do you think such a match would go in Australia.
In Serbia, it was the old fellas who ran out victorious recently, 68-22.
.IN Ireland they have an Origin match with real feeling – the Republic of Ireland v Northern Ireland.
The series has kicked of this year and Northern Ireland won 34-30 in a cracker of a match. Looks like the domination of the fellas from the north isn’t just restricted to the southern hemisphere.
.WE’RE supposed to be unbiased here at Far & Wide but we have to admit we have a favourite club – the Toronto Wolfpack who enter the British third tier next year.
And recruitment is going well for North America’s first club team to play in a European club competition and the first pro side of any sport to be involved in promotion and relegation.
Hull FC youngster Reece Dean has signed on, as has Bradford’s Welsh international Dan Fleming..
.
DON’T forget Far & Wide 360 is back on Fox Sports’ NRL 360 on the first Wednesday of each month.@RLWfarandwide

GAMES, dates and venues have been confirmed for this year’s European Championships.

It all starts on October 16 when Scotland plays Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. The next day, France takes on Ireland at Albi.

There’ll be only one game the following weekend, with Scotland hosting Ireland in Galshiels. That’s the same weekend as the Kiwis kick off their English tour with an old-style club game against Leeds.

Wales take on France in Cardiff on October 31. The series concludes on November 7 with France playing Scotland in Avignon and Ireland meeting Wales in Bray, with the winner being determined on a first past the post basis.

.

VALENCIAN Warriors have won their first title, taking out the Spanish Cup final over Irreductibles Mislata, 32-12.

Centre Christian Domínguez crossed twice for the victors. It’s the second year in a row that Irreductibles have lost the Cup final.

The Latvian premiership has also been determined, too. RC Fenkss finished on top of the four-team competition, ahead of Ķekava Warriors, Grobiņa Vikings and Livonia.

And the 10th Jamaican season has just kicked off.

.

THE latest installment of Far & Wide 360 is back this Wednesday night as the final segment of NRL 360 on Fox Sports.

See an interview with rugby POW Sol Mokdad and the latest from everyone’s favourite hipster club, the Brooklyn Kings and the latest on a police request to ban State of Origin broadcasts in Papua New Guinea!

AFTER securing a quarter-final tie against Australia, United States officials revealed that World Cup organisers had booked them on flights home before the pool stage of the tournament is even completed.
The Tomahawks further enhanced their reputations a the biggest stories of the Cup by downing woeful Wales 24-16 at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground on Sunday; it was 24-4 with 10 minutes to go.
In doing so, the Americans assured themselves of a November 16 appointment with Tim Sheens’ green amd golds at the same venue, which had been locked in in the expectation of Wales progressing.
“Under tournament rules, you are supposed to fly out two days after you are eliminated,” Tomahawks team manager Steve Johnson told Fairfax Media.“Well, we were booked to leave on November 9 – two days before the last pool game when we could always have still been alive.
“It shows how little was expected of us. We ain’t going nowhere now.”
They may be part timers to no-timers – possible Wests Tigers recruit Les Solaia has merely trained once with a rugby union team in Portland, Oregon, this year – but it didn’t take long for the Tomahawks to adopt a decidedly NRL approach to their first game against Australia since the now-legendary 2004 clash in Philadelphia.
Players were instructed to talk only about this week’s final pook match against Scotland,
But former Parramatta and Gold Coast winger Matt Petersen, a tryscorer on Sunday, says each game so far on the campaign has beaten every previous match in a 216-game NRL career and with the quarter’ Australia, his likely final game will now be his most memorable.
“It was definitely one if the highlights of my career (in 2004),” said Petersen, the only survivor from the game a decade ago which rhe US led 24-6 at halftime before losing 36-24
“We’ve got to play Scotland first but it’s a highlight (to do it again). When we played France and we won, to be honest that’s been the highlight of my career, of 10 years of NRL.
“Then we beat Cook Islands. The we came up here and beat Wales. There were 50 people in the crowd with (US) flags and 8000 Welsh people – definitely the highlight of my career.“To be still involved after 10 years is massive. When I came away, I had four weeks left in me and I knew it.”
The Welsh did manage to score first, through centre Christian Roets, and his brace comprised probably the tries of the match.
But Iestyn Harris’ side was mostly pedestrian in attack.
Tomahawks captain Clint Newton crashed over to tie the scores in the 22nd minute. The try of Petersen, who played bush football to keep himself fit for the tounament, seven minutes before the break gave the Americans a halftime lead.
When man of the match Joseph Paulo waltzed through retreating defence 14 minutes into the second half, the writing was on the wall.
Paulo finally managed a conversion when Tui Samoa barged over from dummy half just short of the hour and Penrith’s Newton tossed the ball in the air after posting his second soon afterwards.
RLWC officials began contemplating the size of next Sunday’s crowd in Neath for Wales’ final pool game at this point, while restless members of the crowd began contemplating the jeering of their own team.
This, at least, was averted by late scores by Roets and Anthony Walker, which were greeted enthusastically.
Harris earned himself a rebuke from the Tomahawks when he said afterwards: “Come World Cuo time, they come from all over the world. There’s one USA man in the whole squad”.
The AMNRL posted online: “Just to correct uninformed comments by Wales coach Iestyn Harris about the USA team. We had ten USA nationals and residents on field today” and Petersen commented on Facebook: “You can’t help sore losers”
Harris – whose comment would have been more or less accurate if he was referencing players with American accents – continued: “When we sit down to look at that game, we’ll see 25, 30 opportunities to score points. That’s very frustating.
“It’s a bad result, yeah.”
Harris seemed keen on keep the players on the straight and narrow for the remainder of the tournament wit nothing to play for.
“What you’ve got to show over the next seven days is your professionalism,” he said. “When players look back on this World Cup campaign … they’ll see how they conducted themselves over the seven days.”UNITED STATES 24 (Clint Newton 2, Matt Petersen, Joseph Paulo, Tui Samoa tries; Paulo 2 goals) beat WALES 16 (Christian Roets 2, Antony Walker tries; Lloyd White 2 goals) at Racecourse Ground, Wrexham. Referee: Ben Cummins (Australia). Crowd: 8019.

THE United States came back from 1-0 down in the Colonial Cup against Canada to wrap up the series 3-1 with a 30-22 win – but it was the start of another major controversy Stateside.

The Tomahawks side that was subsequently chosen for the World Cup included just five players who took part in the Colonial Cup, with captain Apple Pope and long-serving forward Curtis Cunz omitted.

That’s still more domestic players than the likes of Ireland and Tonga (who threatened legal action over the domestic player quota before the last World Cup) but it caused a storm in America.

Central to the criticism was that unlike Italy – who also upset local players by picking ‘foreigners’ – the US was unable to source NRL first graders aside from Clint Newton, Junior and Joseph Paulo.

So the players come instead from clubs like Tuggeranong Vikings, Mangere East Hawks and Belrose.

Daryl ‘Spinner’ Howland thought strongly enough about it to record a video, decrying the absence of long-serving internationals.

American rugby league founder David Niu responded on Twitter by saying Pope’s own club coach, had recommended he not be picked. Far & Wide was not able to independently verify this.

The issue with many denizens of American Rugby League – admittedly, mainly those from the breakaway USARL – was that four of the domestic players chosen had played only eight games in the country between them.

Former Tomahawk Kenny Britt said on Facebook that the AMNRL used national selection to ensure their loyalty to the establishment league, only to “turn their back on them” at the 11th hour.

While we see Howland’s point and admire his passion, picking players for the World Cup because sponsors and fans want them in is hard to justify.

Far & Wide reckons that sometimes it’s not who you leave out of these teams but who you replace them with. And because some of the overseas based Tomahawks are far from household names, there will be intense pressure on them to perform.

.

JUST running an eye over all the World Cup squads, it appears Wales is the only one without at least one NRL player.

But while they’ll be underdogs against Italy, they probably won’t be the worst-performed side in the tournament.